A Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is pressing Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) to call President Trump’s budget director before the panel to explain his threat to escalate federal firings amid the government shutdown.

In a letter sent to Comer on Thursday, Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) portrayed Russell Vought, the head of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), as a partisan ideologue who’s waged a war against federal workers all year and is now using the shutdown as a pretext to expand the purge.

Those moves are patently illegal, according to Walkinshaw, whose Northern Virginia district is home to almost 60,000 federal workers. He wants Vought to testify before the Oversight Committee to answer for the threat of mass firings, in lieu of the furloughs that have historically accompanied federal shutdowns.

“Director Vought has already unleashed significant disruption across the federal government through his role in orchestrating the DOGE chaos, his deferred resignation scheme, and the implementation of unnecessary reductions in force,” Walkinshaw wrote to Comer.

“Now, he has escalated further by illegally threatening mass firings of federal employees, actions that would directly violate the Antideficiency Act and undermine the continuity of government operations.”

A spokesperson for the Oversight Committee wasted no time shooting down the idea of bringing Vought before the panel.

“Democrats shouldn’t need a hearing to understand that their shutdown isn’t good for federal employees or the American........

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